JOIN USSupreme Court stays dismissal of IPS officer who probed Ishrat Jahan encounter
The Supreme Court on Monday ordered stay for a week on a decision by the Union government to dismiss senior IPS officer Satish Chandra Verma, who had assisted the CBI in its probe in the alleged fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan in Gujarat.
A bench of Justices K M Joseph and Hrishikesh Roy asked Verma to take appropriate steps to amend the petition pending before the Delhi High Court to challenge the dismissal order.
A 1986-batch IPS officer, Verma was dismissed from service on August 30, a month before his superannuation on September 30.
He was one of the member of the SIT that probed the 2004 Ishrat Jahan case between April 2010 and October 2011 which had concluded that it was a fake encounter. The disciplinary proceedings against him was initiated in 2016 on the basis of his interview to media with regard to a separate matter.
Acting on a plea by the officer, the court allowed Verma to move the Delhi High Court to challenge his dismissal, saying is for the high court to examine whether the stay or vacation of dismissal order is to continue.
In its order, the bench said the interest of justice would require that the order passed by the Centre dismissing him is not to be implemented till one week from today.
It also said it is for the High Court to consider whether order of stay of implementation of order passed by disciplinary authority should continue beyond a period of one week.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Verma, argued that the High Court had been passing orders on his plea from time to time, it has now posted the case for January, 2023.
He said the petition by Verma was getting infructuous. He submitted either the apex court should transfer the high court petition and hear it, or HC should prepone the hearing.
Verma moved the top court as the High Court allowed the Union Home Ministry to take action against him in view of a departmental inquiry, which proved the charges against him.
The charges included interacting “with public media” when he was chief vigilance officer of the North Eastern Electric Power Corporation, Shillong.